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Only the electrolytic method is dealt with, and the processes described are 

 almost entirely based on the author's personal experience. 



The book on Steam Engineering is intended as a complete treatise on 

 steam for the use of those actually engaged in the generation of steam with 

 oil fuel. It contains chapters dealing with the elementary laws of thermo- 

 dynamics, the steam tables, the measurement of temperature, etc. ; but the 

 treatment of these theoretical parts of the subject is necessarily very slight, 

 and the book gains its value from the very thorough description of the modi- 

 fications of ordinary practice rendered necessary by the use of oil, e.g. for its 

 chapters on oil-burning appliances, power-plant design, and oil-fuel tests. 



The next book contains a representative selection of the analytical 

 methods which have been adopted as standard procedures in a large 

 commercial laboratory engaged in technical analysis. Certain classes of 

 work have been omitted as being of interest mainly to specialists, e.g. the 

 analysis of mineral rocks, vitreous materials, drugs, alkaloids and medicines. 

 With these exceptions, the book is remarkably complete, including, as it does, 

 chapters on metals, fuels, paints, oils and soaps, paper, textiles and foodstuffs. 

 The directions given are such as could be readily followed by anyone familiar with 

 analytical technique, but no attempt has been made to give experimental data 

 indicatingthe accuracy of the methodsor to explain the theory underlying them. 



The last book in this collection belongs to a different category. It is 

 written for the owner, or prospective owner, of a car, and aims at familiarising 

 him with the various parts of a standard machine so that he may not be 

 entirely at the mercy of the repairer when repairs have to be carried out. The 

 diagrams and descriptions are very clear ; the book is of reasonable length, 

 and should serve most excellently for the purpose for which it was written. 



Scientific Hheism versus Materialism; the Space-Time Potential. By Arvid 

 Reuterdahl, Dean of the Department of Engineering and Architec- 

 ture, the College of St. Thomas. [Pp. 298, with numerous diagrams.] 

 (New York : The Devin-Adair Company, 1920.) 



In some respects it is a welcome sign of the times that practical men of 

 science show an active interest in those more speculative problems which 

 constitute the domain of philosophy. Only the other day Dr. N. R. Campbell, 

 of the General Electric Co., published, in his imposing volume on Physics, a 

 lengthy discovirse on some of the logical and philosophical foundations of 

 physical science. And now another electrical engineer, Mr. Arvid Reuterdahl, 

 goes one better and plunges boldly into problems of theology as well as of 

 general metaphysics. The two writers are markedly different in style and in 

 temperament. Dr. Campbell is a heavy writer and a very cautious thinker ; Mr. 

 Reuterdahl has a brisk, almost snappy manner, and a most sanguine way of 

 brushing difficulties aside, or even ignoring them altogether. Both authors, 

 however, have this in common — they are both dissatisfied with the current 

 views on the basic assumptions and concepts of science, and both are of 

 opinion that this unsatisfactory state of affairs is partly due to the mathema- 

 ticians who have usurped the role of spokesmen of science, in utter disregard 

 of the fact that mathematics is but one instrument, though a most potent 

 instrument, of science. One may sympathise to some extent with this 

 revolt against the more vociferous mathematicians ; but the inarticulate 

 experimental scientists have only themselves to blame for maintaining silence 

 on these fundamental questions. The study of the foundations and methods 

 of science can only gain in accuracy and in fruitfulness by the co-operation 

 of the concrete experimentalists with the more abstract mathematicians, 

 logicians, and philosophers. 



The principal themes discussed in Mr. Reuterdahl's book are : Some 

 Inconsistent Concepts of Modern Science ; Action at a Distance and the 

 Ether Hypothesis ; The Problem of a Physical Substratum ; The Model of 



